I am using a throw away so it’s not connected to my main. Posted to another sub as well.
My husband and I live together with our 3 cats. We work opposite shifts where there is a lot of time where I am awake but he is asleep and he is awake and I am asleep. It makes finding time to vacuum hard so we don’t wake each other up.
We have a robot vacuum. It’s nice, but it doesn’t do the best job. I used to run it every day but due to the cats there would be fur, tracked litter, and cardboard pieces from their beloved cardboard scratchers on the floor.
I run our robot vacuum daily when I wake up around 9am. My husband is sleeping and the robot vacuum won’t wake him up but our real vacuum will. The real vacuum is also cordless and it won’t let me do the both the kitchen and living room on one battery charge. So the robot vacuum should be run twice to keep the floors clean.
I asked him if he could start the robot vacuum when he gets home from work. He says that is overkill. It doesn’t need to run and I should just use the cordless vacuum when needed. I don’t want to do that because I have very limited time to do it due to our sleep patterns and also I’m tired after work!
With the robot vacuum, I set it in the morning and it runs. Then he can set it when he gets home and it will run. I keep the floors clear so it won’t run into obstacles. All he has to do is press the start button.
It stresses me out because I wake up to use the bathroom once or twice per night because I need to drink a lot of water and my feet pick up debris and crumbs and it feels awful. And he can’t even press a button to start our robot vacuum when he gets home.
Am I the asshole for wanting him to start the robot vacuum when he gets home from work?
INFO – why do you and he have to run it manually? Isn’t part of the point of the robots that they can run automatically on a schedule?
Yeah I thought this was a situation where they need to pick up debris etc off the floor first. We have tons of cat toys, so we have to clear the floor first. But it sounds like that’s not an issue. Maybe it’s a very old vacuum?
In which case the solution may instead be “buy a newer one” if it makes everyone happier.
I also note that OPs issue is dirty feet when getting up at night… so – she could run it when she goes to bed instead of when she leaves for work… seeing as: who is she vacuuming for when she vacuums during the day when Noone who cares is home?
My cats. I run it when I wake up. The floor is clean. Then the cats do their thing and make the floor dirty. They are very active when I sleep and make a mess so I want him to press the start button when he gets home to clean up after them.